The present invention relates generally to message communication and more particularly describes novel apparatus and techniques for reliably conveying messages to individuals or groups of individuals.
It is often desirable to reach individuals without disturbing them when a transmitted message is received, while also allowing such individuals to view the message at their convenience.
Heretofore, paging systems have generally been designed to reach a selected person who is made aware of the page by a beeper sound or the like upon which the paged person goes to the nearest telephone and calls the originator of the paging signal for the message. Another type of paging system has the ability to receive the message, providing the recipient with a paging signal, and a voice message. A person carrying a paging system of either type may not wish to be disturbed, such as an attorney during court proceedings, and such person will turn off the paging device which loses the ability to inform the person that a message is intended for him. A person using the second type of paging system may be unable to understand the voice message in a noisy environment or unable to make notes of the voice message such as when operating a motor vehicle. If the person desires to review the voice message, he must telephone the originator of the message.
With another type of prior art system, the person is provided with a paging system that has the ability to receive the message and retain it as hard copy. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,846,783 which issued on Nov. 5, 1974. However, even that system lacked the ability to store messages in digitally encoded form so that the message may be reproduced whenever the recipient desires. Said system also lacked the ability to: warn the intended recipient when the receiver is out of range of the transmitting antenna, provide each receiver with a plurality of addresses, remotely add or delete addresses from the personal receiver, remotely turn off the personal receiver when no messages are transmitted, predetermine the character count of the transmitted message avoiding the possibility of a lost end of message character in transmission, and synchronize the personal receiver with the data stream without the parallel transmission of clock information.
Accordingly, it is an important object of the present invention to provide a receiver that is light, compact and reliable enough to be carried by individuals.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a first address uniquely identifying each receiver.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a further address identifying a common group of receivers.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a common address identifying all receivers.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to remotely add or delete or modify any address of the personal receiver.
It is still a further object of the present invention to store the message until the recipient is able to conveniently review the message on a visual display.
It is yet another further object of the present invention to allow the recipient to selectively view, retain, or delete messages stored in the personal receiver.
It is a further object of the present invention to warn the recipient when the receiver is out of range of a transmitting antenna.
It is a further object of the present invention to combine sequentially repeated transmission of the same message while storing the maximum number of error-free characters of the single message.